The Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

Blood all over the floor, and it
hurts
. No one tells you that, how much it hurts. I screamed. I begged him to stop. He told me I’d get used to it, next time I’d like it better—”
    She rubbed her hand across her mouth, closed her eyes, fifteen again and back in Paris.
    “Finally, he’s done. A virgin, he says. Didn’t think those existed anymore. I tell him he’d better kill me, I’m telling my mother when Iget back to the hotel, I’m calling the police. He says go ahead. He holds up my wineglass, says I was drinking, no one will believe me, everyone knows models are little whores. Anyway, if I do, I’ll never get another job, not in Paris or anywhere.”
    “So you didn’t tell your mother?”
    Orli laughed, small and bitter. “I did. The very minute I came to our room.”
    Duberman sat beside her. She edged away.
    “She told me I’d get over it. You know, good money, and there was something else, too. Mothers and daughters, I don’t think men can understand, my mother was pretty enough, but forty-seven, her looks were fading, and I was—”
    “This.”
    “She told me I would remember for the rest of my life, the way men really are. That being beautiful makes you a target. She said I shouldn’t think anyone would believe me. Understand, I was still bleeding, bruises on my legs.”
    “I’m sorry, Orli.” The only words he had, however inadequate.
    “She asked me, was I
sure
I hadn’t invited him. We were in a little hotel on the Left Bank, the sixth floor. Our room had a balcony, and I walked outside and looked down and the pavement called to me. But then I decided, no, I won’t give them the pleasure, not my mother, none of them. You think I don’t know the world?” She reached over, took his hand, squeezed once. “You’d better tell me.”
    He didn’t answer. She let go of him, pulled on her shoes, went to the bedroom door, long, sure strides. “I’ll take the boys to Sam’s.” Her younger sister, whose given name was Shasa, but whom Orli always called Sam. “Don’t fight me for custody. I’ll take the prenup.”
    “Orli—”
    “Then
let me judge
.”
    He should have stayed silent and let her go. Kept her away, kept her safe. But he couldn’t face losing her, much less the boys. So he told her. Not everything, but enough.
    “You tried to fool the United States into invading Iran,” she said, when he was done. She sat beside him on the bed, touched his neck gently, a nurse calming a feverish patient.
    “It must seem—” Another sentence he couldn’t finish. “I promise it’s true.”
    “But the CIA found out the truth.”
    “Not exactly.” He understood her confusion. “This man Wells who used to work for them, and two others. One a senator named Duto.”
    “The ones who came to the mansion?”
    “Right.” In the desperate days before the President’s deadline, Wells and Duto had come directly to Tel Aviv to confront Duberman. “The third one still works at the agency—Ellis Shafer is his name. They figured it out together and went to the President.”
    “Here I thought I had the best story of the night. And the President doesn’t tell the truth because he thinks it’ll make him look guilty, too. Because of all the money you gave to his reelection.”
    “Exactly. People will believe he knew what I was doing. Even though he didn’t.”
    “So why did Mr. Shin Bet come?”
    “The President won’t say anything in public, but he told the Prime Minister the truth, what really happened. He asked the Israelis to make me leave—”
    “Why?”
    “Probably because they think I’ll be an easier target outside Israel. And Shalom agreed. You and the boys can stay. I have forty-eight hours to get out.”
    “You can’t change his mind?”
    “He practically threatened to pull the trigger himself.”
    “Where will you go? Somewhere in Africa they don’t have electricity, they don’t know you. Tibet, a monk. After all your women.” She laughed, with a mocking